In oblivion the battle of bruma was absolutely awesome, but after rounding up soldiers and closing gates, there was like ten guys defending a little clearing from about 20 daedra coming out of these monstrously huge gates to Oblivion. I was kind of expecting swarms of daedra and alot more guards.... In skyrim, would you want real battles? (not bladestorm sized, but you knnow what I mean.) In FNV the gunfights were realistic sized, with a few peole on each side taking cover. Maybe battle in skyrim will be more real since the new engine will be even better than FNV's?

The issue with Oblivion was that there was only one, detailed, NPC model. Tessellation could solve this issue by scaling down quality as you get further away, allowing for much more detailed NPCs.

Combat AI is also quite CPU-intensive. Unfortunately, resource constraints will make very large battles impossible, though I'm sure we can do better than Oblivion simply because of how hilariously un-optimised the engine was.

I love the idea of large battles, but my guess is the reason Oblivion didn't have such a large battle is probably because of the engine. I have high hopes for this engine so far and I'm thinking it will be able to handle large scale battles. Maybe up to 50 people at a time?

There's already http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1167749-wars-and-battles/ about it...

Duplicate threads merged

ES should not have massive battles. At least I do not think so.

i remember the battle for Bruma the npcs killed Jaffery... so a-lot more in a confined space would lead to them wiping them selves out

giving you a bit less time.

Very true, except in Vikings Battle for asgard. That was the best feature in that game. They had 100+ people on each side doing battles, and you could go as long as you wanted before ending it. If Bethesda could to that to an RPG, they would be unstoppable! :woot:

maybe if they based a massive battle on a strategy element where your in charge maybe that might work

tell people where to go and what to do could make it a bit more entertaining / interesting

The problem is that NPC models in Oblivion are pretty complex, very complex compared with games who have armies of soldiers on the screen at once.
One other problem is friendly fire, Mount and blade who have much larger battles with up to 200 fighters, depending on you settings, is praised for it realism but don't have melee friendly fire as it would cause serious problems then two shield walls hit each other.
Skyrim has a mechanism to reduce friendly melee hits. it also have an optimised engine, but I doubth it manage more than twice of bruma.

I'll never understand why that obsession of being in charge of everything, or the leader of every faction in the game. What would be wrong with fighting as another simple soldier between thousands of them? Or (if you're kinda individualistic) like someone who has simply been engulfed into the battle but that he has no personal quarrel on it, and he fights only to live another day?

It's just so unrealistic to be always "the boss"....

On the other hand, the last dragonborn and our last, best hope for peace not being in charge of the battle does seem a bit odd.

So, being a Dragonborn automatically grants you with the strategy insight of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scipio_Africanus? That'd be handy indeed...

if you want to put a force of realism in then look at it this way wouldn't it be a bad thing if the dragonborn were to die in a battle that isn't close to the end. hes the only hope for the Tamriel so it would make sense to save him for the finishing battle so there's your realism

Again, having to be protected and being a strategist are two different things. Or if you've a police hostage situation and you manage to rescue one of them (a 50 year-old housewife), you put her in charge of the entire operation just to "keep her safe"?

Besides, depending of how intelligent is the enemy, a leadership position is even the most dangerous one. After all, killing commanding officers has always been the easiest way to both demoralize and disorganize the troops.

No, but it does make you by far the most important person there, and as any battles you're a part of are likely against a dragon, you're the local expert.

Fighting a 1 vs 1 battle against a dragon? Certainly.

Commanding a battle against a thousand of their minions (call them human followers, goblins, whatever) or in a civil war-related one? Errr...not necessarely.

my biggest problem with the battle of bruma was not that it was so small, but before the battle you got the impression that it would be massive. they should have said that it would be a small (but important) battle.

True there, but you also shouldn't be a common footsoldier in such a battle, you're too important to lose.

you've never played a strategy game have you


im talking like the stronghold series... your the most important person in there your controlling your army to prevent the other from breaching your walls while you have another team on the offensive as far as the smart AI goes its just another challenge to the player. point being it will make the part of the game a bit more challenging

hopefully there will be player vs horde moments

i know what you mean. the battle for Bruma felt like a street fight. they could have made it appear there were other gates surrounding Bruma. scatter some dead bodies around Bruma(after the battle). maybe 20-30 soldiers in the combat zone? good topic man. anyone hating on this idea is a troll.

Again, what's wrong with being a common soldier? If you're anyway the "almighty Dragonborn", then you shouldn't have problems to take care of yourself in such situation, aren′t you?

I'll even agree that being in charge of a small platoon of warriors could make sense. But I still don't get why you've to magically be "the Greatest General of all Cyrodiil" just by being the PC / a Dragonborn. Just imagine the thoughts of the people if you screw it...

"Oh, look people! He's a Dragonborn! No, THE Dragonborn!"

"Oh, yeah, it's him! Let's put him in charge in the next upcoming massive battle for no apparent reason!"

PC: "Erhmm...I'm not kind of a strategist. I was a farmer before discovering all that Dragonborn thing, you know..."

"Yeah, that way we'll show those ogres who's boss! Let's kick some goblin' asses!"

PC: "....are you even listening to me?"

(After the battle, when your armies have been totally massacred).

PC: "Well, that was a deception...but we've fought pretty well, haven't we, guys? "Lo importante es participar", isn't it? "

(Half of the surviving townsfolk / soldiers look at you with blood in their eyes, while the other half feel too stupid to even look up).

Plus, it's also a matter of roleplaying and being able to choose what you do or don't in the game. Why in the name of Azura do I have to mandatory be the leader of anything if I don't want to or I don't care about the reasons behind that battle?



Why, I've played a lot of them, since the first Age of Empires...

...and you're not getting the point at all.

In Total war series there are over 2000 men in a battle and it doesnt even lag

True, you shouldn't be put in charge of any battles not directly against dragons unless you're capable, even then it should be optional. I do think that you are Too Important To Lose to a battle against such mediocre enemies as trolls and goblins, however!


In Total war series there are under 2000 polys on a man. If they were replaced with oblivion's more detailed models you wouldn't get more than 1fps.